William Ford Pipes, Jr.

William Ford Pipes, Jr., was born in Monroe on December 4, 1928, and died on June 15, 2024, in Baton Rouge, LA. Funeral service will be held at 1:00PM Wednesday, June 19, 2024, at Grace Episcopal Church with Reverend Don M. Smith officiating under the direction of Mulhearn Funeral Home Sterlington Rd. Monroe. 

Ford was a life-long resident of Ouachita Parish and graduated from Barkdull Faulk Grammar School and Ouachita Parish High School in 1945. He then attended Louisiana State University where he received BA (1949) and JD (1951) degrees. At LSU he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity. After passing the Louisiana State Bar on August 1, 1951, he joined his father in the practice of law under the firm name of Pipes and Pipes. 

Shortly thereafter, in the fall of 1951, he entered the United States Army. About six months after his entry in the Army, he received a commission as a First Lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and was sent to the Jag School at the University of Virginia. Upon graduation he was assigned to the 45th Infantry Division in Korea. After a year of service there (during which time the war ended in August of 1953) he returned to the United States and was released from active duty under early release program. He was later promoted to the rank of Captain and continued to serve in the reserves until his discharge in 1961. 

He rejoined his father in the practice of law in 1953, after his release from active duty and continued to practice (also with his brother who later joined the firm) until his retirement in the fall of 1997. During this time, he served as an assistant attorney for the City of Monroe, as president of the Fourth Judicial District Bar Association and as the first chairman of the Fourth Judicial District Indigent Defender Board. He was a member of the Fourth Judicial District Bar Association, the Louisiana State Barr Association and the American Bar Association. 

He also served as president of the Monroe Jaycees, the Monroe Branch of the English-Speaking Union and the Twin Cities Y’s Men’s Club, and as a board member of the YMCA, Twin City Art Foundation (Masur Museum) and the Monroe Symphony Orchestra. He was elected to two terms on the Vestry of Grace Episcopal Church and to the positions of Secretary and Senior Warden. He was also a board member of St. Christopher’s Day School (later Grace Episcopal School).

He was preceded in death by his father and mother, William Ford Pipes and Ruth Pipes, nee Ford; brother, Richard Hayes Pipes; and sister-in-law, Jo Ann Ransom Pipes.

Survivors include his niece, Nancy Adele Pipes Bancroft; three nephews, Richard Hayes Pipes, Jr., William Ransom “Randy” Pipes, and Wesley Ford Pipes, along with a number of great nephews and great nieces. 

Memorials may be made to Grace Episcopal Church, Grace Episcopal School, or the charity of your choice.